twocats the other thing to ask is, how much of it has to do with the piano’s … pedal regulation, for lack of a better term.
Different pianos absolutely have different pedal technique needs, and I’ve played a few pianos that seem to have a more responsive pedal than most. OTOH, the S&S in the room where my lesson is currently has what must be the worst pedal on the planet, completely unresponsive and you have to smash it down as hard as you can to get it to work. Don’t even think about trying to half pedal with that beast.
Sorry, that’s a bit of thread drift.
A concert piano will of course be expertly prepped to the pianist’s needs, and this pianist might have special requests regarding the pedal….
Still, even then there are the physical mechanics of the pedal, so her pedaling technique certainly sounds intricate. I just wonder how much of it would be replicable on a different instrument.
Btw what kind of shoes was she wearing? At the concert I played in last month, the woman who played after me (a doctoral student in piano performance who played some wonderful Liszt) was wearing super tall high heels, the kind with a very skinny stiletto heel. Because the piano was up on a dolly, the pedals were much higher off the floor than is normal (which I hate). Her heels brought her foot to a higher position than I could be at (because I wasn’t wearing heels), but it also meant the heel of her right shoe was almost horizontal to the floor, which seemed weird and it looked like sometimes her foot sometimes slipped forward a bit because of the stiletto-heel.
I don’t know, it’s not super relevant to your observations, but I remember noticing it and wondering if her foot felt uncomfortable, like maybe she had to focus on holding it in place more than one might want …